


Three Sentence Fics: Greek and Roman Mythology

by Zdenka



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, 3 Sentence Fiction, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 02:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3711016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/pseuds/Zdenka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of fills written for rthstewart's 3 Sentence Ficathon in 2013 and 2015, for prompts based on Greco-Roman mythology, tragedy, and epic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Sentence Fics: Greek and Roman Mythology

_prompt from betony: Greek Mythology, Odysseus/Penelope, Ikarios_

Ikarios watches the throng of men crowding his brother's hall in Sparta, suitors for Helen's hand, and wonders how his own daughter will fare in all this.

The King of Ithaka is never still; he moves as busily as Penelope's shuttle, speaking with kings and princes and chieftains, planning this, urging that. Ikarios is surprised to realize that no matter how many times Odysseus crosses the hall, he always circles back to Penelope where she sits weaving.

_Note: If it's not clear from context, Ikarios was the father of Penelope (and brother of Tyndareos, the father of Helen of Troy)._

* * *

_prompt from vialethe : Greek mythology, Cassandra (+/any), and so you watched until it was broken/and know that foresight delays no motion._

_This fill is partly Aeneid-based, and partly thinking of Berlioz's opera Les Troyens, where they have a lovely (and doomed) duet._

Hope for No Safety

When young Coroebus came to fight at Troy for love of her, she begged him to leave; he smiled and tried to reassure her with the courage of Troy's warriors, the strength of its walls. He could not believe in the danger. And time drove inexorably forward like a swift chariot to the moment she had foreseen, his body broken on Ajax's spear on the steps of Athena's temple, his blood added to the blood staining her robe.

* * *

_prompt from betony: Greek Mythology, Clytemnestra and Orestes, always I loved you_

nostimon ēmar

It had to come, the day of his return; she has awaited it, longed for it, dreaded it. Now she sees everything double: the body of Aegisthus at her feet is also Agamemnon, righteously slain, and hapless Tantalus, and the grim-faced young man with a merciless sword is yet the helpless babe she suckled at her breast. "You are my son," she cries, "always I loved you"; but he raises his sword bleakly and says, "It doesn't matter."

_Note: In Euripides's Iphigenia at Aulis, Tantalus was Clytemnestra's first husband, slain by Agamemnon. (Not the same as the father of Pelops.) nostimon ēmar: "day of returning," as in the beginning of the Odyssey._

* * *

_Prompt from halberdier: Classical Mythology, Apollo/Dionysus, partake of the krater_

Winter is drawing to an end, and spring is rising in the hidden sap of the trees; high in the bowl of the sacred mountains, the reign of Delphi passes from Dionysos to Apollo.

For this one night they recline together, sharing a krater of wine, speaking and answering, a god to a god. For this one night Apollo lets the wine of Dionysos sing through his veins, and Dionysos lets his body shine translucent with Apollo's light; and when morning comes, they arise and take their separate ways, Dionysos with his terrible divine madness and Apollo with the bright-burning flame of reason that is no less terrible.

* * *

_prompt from betony: Greek Mythology, Megara (Princess of Thebes) & Ismene, "Cousin, the cruelest fate of all is to survive."_

And We Are Left

Ismene cannot shriek and wail her grief as others do; she cuts her hair and goes through the required forms of mourning, but all she can think is: what will become of us now?

The city has barely begun to recover from war, plague, and unspeakable horror; Creon, who still holds the royal power, walks with halting step and trembling hands, as if the weight of all his years has come upon him in a single night.

As Ismene pours dutiful offerings at Antigone's tomb, Creon's daughter Megara -- newly mourning mother and brothers, but Ismene knows she has never stopped mourning her children, slain in her husband's madness -- approaches her to murmur, "Songs will be sung of them; but the harder task is ours."

_(Note: Megara was the wife of the hero Herakles, who killed their children in a fit of madness sent by the goddess Hera.)_

* * *

_prompt from betony: Classical Mythology, Andromache (/Hektor), the fall of Thebe_

The day the Achaeans take Thebe under Mount Plakos, the day her father and brothers fall to the sharp-bladed bronze, Andromache learns what war brings to women.

Her mother stands tall and proud among the weeping captives and says with dignity, "My father is a noble lord of Troy; release me and my daughter unharmed, and he will pay you a rich ransom."

Their captor assents; but Andromache will never forget her first sight of Achilles in his terrible gleaming helm, his spear stained with the blood of her people.

* * *

_prompt from betony: Classical Mythology, Odysseus/Penelope, there was a reason he used the name “Aethon of Crete”_

Fill #1:

Aethon, the burning one, he called himself; how often have her fears imagined him burning on the pyre, laid low by some Trojan spear?

"Telemachus is bringing my urn, bones and ashes," he tells her, wavering like flame before her eyes, "but did I not promise to come home to you?"

He cups her cheek and presses one last fiery kiss upon her lips; and when he fades away into air before she can grasp him, she cannot even feel angry at his last trick.

Fill #2:

In response to her questions, he weaves together truth and lies as easily as always, making himself Idomeneus of Crete's imaginary younger brother. Penelope has always been able to see to the heart of things; he both fears and hopes that he will not deceive her. 

He meets her eyes as he describes every detail of the garments she clothed him in the day he departed, the golden brooch she gave him -- lost long ago at the bottom of the sea -- and because there is, as always, truth behind his lies for those who can hear, he names himself Aethon, for his burning desire to return home.


End file.
